


Whirlwind

by beetle



Category: Star Trek
Genre: M/M, Post-Movie(s)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-05-20
Updated: 2013-05-20
Packaged: 2017-12-12 10:38:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,871
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/810636
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beetle/pseuds/beetle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for a prompt at st_xi_kink," De-aged Sulu please. I want him running around the ship in munchkin form but still being the BAMF we all know he is. Bonus if there is some Chekov/Sulu going on."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Whirlwind

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I don't own the Whirlwind, just reap it.  
> Notes: Vague spoilers for the movie.

"No! Nonononononononono-- _nooooooooooo_!"  
  
  
It's the first thing Pavel hears when he enters the Sickbay. The first thing he  _sees_  is Dr. McCoy, standing arms akimbo, glaring at the ceiling. Like a man not just praying for patience, but  _demanding_  it from a lazy and recalcitrant deity.  
  
  
 _If whichever God he prays to knows what's best for it, it won't leave him to wait,_  Pavel thinks, almost smiling. But he spots Nurse Chapel sitting on a bio-bed trying to hold a small whirlwind on her lap and recalls exactly why he's been summoned.  
  
  
Wonders if it's not too late to sneak out . . . just back ever so slowly toward the doors, and hope he isn't noti--  
  
  
"Ah! Mr. Chekov!" McCoy booms a little too loudly, stalking toward Pavel with an ostensibly friendly face, but he just looks extremely annoyed and possibly constipated. Pavel backs toward the doors a little faster, but Mcoy's already on him--dragging him deeper into Sickbay by one arm (his hand must be cybernetic. Even though the Doctor looks anything but weak, there's no reason a human hand should be so vice-like) and over to Nurse Chapel.  
  
  
And what was, just a few hours ago, his best friend. . . .  
  
  
"Blood samples!" McCoy growls in a way that should have cowed the noisy little whirlwind, since Pavel is, himself, quite cowed. "I need some. Maybe  _you_  can talk some sense into him. Every time I get near him--"  
  
  
 _"Noooooooooooooo!_ " the Whirlwind howls again, though it sounds less angry and more frightened. The flailing has slowed enough for Pavel to make out from under heavy bangs, familiar dark eyes, tear-filled and yes, frightened. Nurse Chapel looks like she's about to cry herself . . . from frustration. Those tiny little arms and legs (swimming in Hikaru's uniform shirts like an infant in a Christening gown) are seemingly tireless. "I don' wanna shot! Huuuurts!"  
  
  
“Y'see?!” The Doctor flings one arm out, like a carnival barker presenting something particularly strange in a sideshow display. Perhaps that's exactly how he feels.  
  
  
Pavel approaches Nurse Chapel, who turns such a look of hope upon him, he feels guilty in advance for being no help at all. “Em . . . hello, little vone . . . hello. . . .”  
  
  
Surprisingly, after a few more flails and yells, the Whirlwind suddenly stops, and blinks up at him with wet, alert, angry eyes. “Don' wanna shot!”  
  
  
“Em, yes. So I have heard. But. The thing is--”  
  
  
“No shot! No shot! No shot!” the Whirlwind-child starts chanting at the top of lungs that are surely larger than the average toddler's. The flailing starts up again, harder than ever.  
  
  
“Oh, capital job, Ensign. Thanks for showing us how it's done,” McCoy snarks, crossing his arms. Pavel huffs.  
  
  
“I did not see  _you_  doing any better. Sir,” he adds. Then sighs. “I should not ewen be here. I should be at my station--”  
  
  
“Chekov.  _Pavel_. Damnit, man, you're his best friend,” McCoy says, as if such a fact has any bearing on such a situation. When Pavel shrugs, the Doctor flings up the other arm: a resigned--yet enraged--martyr striking a Jesus Christ-pose.  
  
  
“I apologize, Doctor, I do. But I am  _Hikaru_ 's best friend. This? Is child! I did not know Hikaru-child, only Hikaru! And I also don't relate vell to children--ewen vhen I vas vone!”  
  
  
(It's true. Pavel didn't have a single friend his own age till . . . well, he's actually still waiting for one.)  
  
  
McCoy scoffs. “Oh, come now, Ensign, I'm not askin' you to  _adopt_  the little brat--”  
  
  
“Poop-head! Poop-head! Stinky Dr. Poop-head!” The Whirlwind crows . . . somehow, remarkably, louder . . . and McCoy looks like his head's about to explode. Or like he wishes it would.  
  
  
“All I'm asking is for you to reason with or distract him-- _anything_ , so I don't have to get  _security_  to hold him down. I guarantee you he won't like  _that_ ,” McCoy says, not without a certain grim satisfaction. Pavel almost feels protective of the Whirlwind.  
  
  
But the moment passes, and he reattempts a low-key sidle toward the Sickbay doors. Reattempts, but is unsuccessful. McCoy's and Chapel's glares glue him in place.  
  
  
He sighs again, shoulder's slumping. “The Hikaru I know, I could reason vith. But this Hikaru is  _child_. Ve do not know each other, and he has no reason to trust me. He doesn't ewen  _remember me_.”  
  
  
Reason. Sweet reason. It's saved Pavel from many unpleasant duties and even more unpleasant ass-kickings. He can out-reason everyone he knows, with the exception of Commander Spock (who is Vulcan) and Keptin Kork (who is a cunning, functionally insane man-child, on whom logic rarely works).  
  
  
Reason is what lifts the righteous storm from the Doctor's furrowed brow, in a faint but clear sign of eventual capitulation (like chess, arguments are often made and broken on a single capitulation, if the party with the advantage is smart enough to make the most of it). And Pavel's all but ready to talk his way around whatever lame objections McCoy may raise when the worst possible thing happens:  
  
  
“Chekov,” the Whirlwind says clearly, his flailing slowing to a stop. He blinks, then squints at Pavel in a steely, entirely familiar way. “Pavel Andra—And--”  
  
  
“--reievich,” Pavel finishes with a third sigh, his own capitulation a given now. At least to McCoy and Chapel, who're smirking--the smug smirks off people who've narrowly avoided an unpleasant duty and ass-kicking all in one.  
  
  
Pavel bends a bit, so he's eye-to-eye with a still squinting, very suspicious Whirlwind. “So, em. You remember me, little vone?”  
  
  
The Whirlwind nods solemnly. “Pavel. Pavel-Pavel-Pavel,” he says, and heaves a befuddled sigh of his own. “You're my friend.”  
  
  
“That's right.”  _He's tired_ , Pavel thinks, feeling another pang of sympathy. McCoy tires and confuses him, too.  _Poor Hikaru. . . ._  “Do you remember vhere you are?”  
  
  
The Whirlwind shakes his head just as solemnly.  
  
  
“Okay--that's okay. Em. Do you remember vhat happened down on Epsilon-Gamma?”  
  
  
Another negative, this one complete with teary eyes and a trembly lower lip. One tiny hand comes up to rub at his eyes, and his little chest is hitching.  
  
  
“Good goin', Patch Adams,” McCoy mutters, and Pavel ignores him. Steps a little closer, smiling even though the Whirlwind shrinks back against Nurse Chapel.  
  
  
“Do not be scared--it's okay if you do not remember much. Can you tell me vhat you  _do_  remember?”  
  
  
The Whirlwind looks at McCoy, then up at Nurse Chapel, who smiles encouragingly. When he looks back at Pavel, he seems a bit more resolute. His face is screwed into a determined scowl, his brows drawn together. “I 'member. . . .” he says doubtfully, and Pavel tries to copy Nurse Chapel's smile.  
  
  
“Go on. Vhat do you remember?”  
  
  
The Whirlwind leans forward, looking at Pavel for a long time. Then his face clears, and he laughs. “You kissed me!” he says, and laughs and laughs while Pavel. . . .  
  
  
. . . tries his best to sink into the floor.  
  
  
Seconds tick by, during which the Whirlwind keeps chortling, Nurse Chapel looks at him at him curiously, and McCoy--well, truth be told, Pavel really has no interest in seeing the Doctor's disapproval phasers set to  _kill_. “It, em. It vas nothing, really. Just a little nothing-- _barely_  a kiss at all! In fact, it vas just a little peck on cheek!” he adds, only that's kind of a lie.  
  
  
A lie the Whirlwind unintentionally calls him on. “You kissed me and your tongue was in my mouth!” he exclaims, with the least helpful sense of timing ever. Bordering on perverse, really. Pavel's smile feels like it's made of pasteboard.  
  
  
“Okay, ha-ha, you can stop remembering, now--obwiously his memory has been affected by the, em, vhatewer made him three years old.” Pavel risks a look at McCoy. He doesn't look amused.  
  
  
“Not three-- _four_! I'm  _four_!” the Whirlwind corrects angrily, bouncing in Nurse Chapel's lap. He's got his second wind and is braced for melt-down, once more. “Don't  _like_  it here! Smells funny and you're all mean!”  
  
  
At exactly the same time, Pavel's having a melt-down of his own: “Really, Doctor, it vas nothing--ve vere on leave, and ve had been drinking a  _lot_ , and--”  
  
  
“Ensign.” McCoy's voice is dangerously quiet, his eyes narrowed and bulging at the same time. “Look. I don't care if you dry-humped him on Raaka II--just keep him quiet and still while I get some b-l-o-o-d and take some t-e-s-t-s's! Got it?”  
  
  
“Aye, sir.” Pavel turns his strained smile on the Whirlwind, whose little face is red in preparation for another screaming-flailing fit. “Em. Listen to me, Hikaru: you are tventy-five years old, not three. But there vas an accident vith the transporter, and it make you a child. To make you a big boy again, Dr. McCoy needs to run tests, othervise . . . you might stay child forewer. You don't vant to be child forewer, right?”  
  
  
“Yes!” the Whirlwind yells, and jack-knifes in Nurse Chapel's arms, the back of his head slamming into her face.  
  
  
" _Ouch_!" She lets go of the Whirlwind, and Pavel sees a flash of red before she covers her nose with both hands--before the Whirlwind jumps down from her lap. He looks up at Pavel, as if sizing him up, clearly dismisses him and dodges around. Nearly gets scooped up by McCoy, but ducks under his arms and aims a painfully accurate kick at his shin.  
  
  
The Doctor's incredibly loud  _son of a bitch!_  rings off the pristine walls of the Sickbay. The Whirlwind darts under the leg McCoy isn't hopping on and quickly disappears out the Sickbay door on tiny, blurry legs.  
  
  
In the silence that reigns once the Sickbay doors close on the Whirlwind's high-pitched whoops, Pavel watches McCoy limp over to a moaning Nurse Chapel. He whips out his tricorder, and scans her, his mouth set in its usual unhappy line. He tilts her head head back gently, but there's already blood around her mouth, and running down her chin. She snuffles wetly and moans again.  
  
  
"Crap. It's broken, Christine. Jesus-fuckin'-Christ on a bobsled,” McCoy mutters, and looks at Pavel as if surprised to see him still there. “Well? Go on, Ensign--get after him!"  
  
  
Pavel gapes. " _Me?_  Vhere I should look?" It's not a whine. Just a doubtful, and moderately plaintive interrogative. (Plus, Pavel has no interest in getting head-butted by a toddler.)  
  
  
"Don't know, don't care, Ensign. But you'd better find him, and get him back here so I can bleed him, find out what the hell caused this, and if anyone else is at risk!" With one last, soul-withering glare, the Doctor helps Nurse Chapel to her feet, instructing her to keep her head tilted back. To which she replies  _I doe, Leodard_ , in a clogged, waspish voice.  
  
  
One hand splayed on her upper back, the other still scanning her with the tricorder, McCoy guides her toward his office, strangely solicitous. “When Chekov brings him back, I'll tan his hide," he promises, spurring a slightly less reluctant, but not particularly alarmed Pavel toward the doors.  
  
  
"Ged in lide, Leodard . . . ow, by fugging  _dose_ ," Nurse Chapel says as the door to McCoy's office closes behind them.  
  
  
Squaring his shoulders, Pavel Andreievich Chekov exits Sickbay and begins what promises to be a long hunt for his best friend.


End file.
